Graham Beattie, former managing director of Penguin New Zealand, and now New Zealand's premier book blogger (see link to the right), said he doubted that the merger would be good for the publishing sector here. "I don't go for this big is beautiful thing," he said. He anticipates big job losses from the merger. Distribution could well be run from Penguin's outlet in Australia, rather than Random House's operation on Auckland's North Shore. "Instead of having two warehouses, they will have one. Instead of having two senior editors of fiction, they will have one."

On the other hand, Lincoln Gould, CEO of Booksellers New Zealand, thought the merger could lead to lower prices, benefiting the book-buying public. "We would hope there would be efficiency gains in the supply chain, which is based on an outdated modeal and means consumers in New Zealand are faced with high book prices compared with other countries," he said.